Volunteer for Climate Watch with Audubon South Carolina

You might be interested in helping with a new Audubon South Carolina citizen science initiative called Climate Watch. Stemming from the National Audubon Society’s 2014 climate report – which found that half of U.S. birds are threatened by climate change by the year 2080 – Climate Watch will feature on-the-ground surveys to help groundtruth the predictions of the climate models in this report. Read more about Climate Watch here: http://www.audubon.org/conservation/climate-watch-pilot-program .

Surveys will focus on species that are easy to identify and show a high degree of habitat loss (or gain) based on this report. In 2017, we’ll be focusing on Eastern Bluebirds in South Carolina. I’ve been working with the Charleston Audubon chapter to set up surveys in our area, and I’m looking for a few more volunteers to help out. If interested, you would simply go out one morning during the survey window and stop at 12 predetermined points and conduct a five-minute count of all of the Eastern Bluebirds (and any other species that you’re able to identify) seen and heard at each point. This will hopefully be a fun, easy way to get out and count birds as part of an important census!

The one catch is that the first survey window is here (January 15th – 30th); if you are interested, please let me know as soon as possible so that I can work with you to determine the best area to survey. If you are interested but can’t participate this January, let me know as we will be conducting surveys again during the breeding season (June 2017).

If you have questions or ideas, please don’t hesitate to ask. Thanks for your time and I hope to hear from you soon!